Farming Wailing and Shrieking Substances

[Arou]

I am interested in improving the rate at which I can get wailing and shrieking substances. I typically use my 46th Warrior in Hollowshade Moor to kill the owlbears and sonic wolves when they control the southern camp, but I have seen and heard of people using area effect nukes to clear more of the mobs faster.

How do you use area effect nukes to do this? What class and level must the caster be? What spell do they use? I am generally familiar with the tactics of pulling large numbers to the caster using a SoW'd tank. Also, I have a second account I can use for this activity. What class should I make and what level must they be to support this tactic?

[kiztent]

Ideally a AoE group will need 3 people besides a puller (PBAoEer, stunner, healer).

51 mages get a PBAoE (51 - scintillation), wizards have a long line of PBAoEs (from fingers of fire at level 8 to winds of Gelid at 60), clerics have a few PBAoEs (upheaval and others), as well as druids, shadow knights (104 point PBAoE at 39).

You need to find a PBAoE (point blank area of effect, purple icon) that will do enough damage to whatever you are nuking to kill them all outright, since unless you have a stunner, the person casting the PBAoEs will possibly die if any mobs are left up (dress wearers anyway).

[Bobbun]

The best way for you to improve your kill rate is to level your warrior up. I know that an alt that can AoE or control a pet is tempting, but... My 65 rogue can pretty much kill the mobs there non-stop without even worrying about heals. Each mob dies in just a few seconds, so that the longest delay is in looting the corpse and finding another mob. Best of all, of course, is that I use no mana in that process, so there's no stopping to med like you would have using AoE nukes.

[Annu]

Add an enchanter, and you have margin of safety. By lvl 34, a good enchanter should be able to keep a herd of mobs immobile for at least as long as the mana holds out with a flux/shift/pbaoe mez, at least in theory. Plan on trying it out as soon as I get lvl 34, and the buffer to keep it in case my theory don't work :twisted:

Annu

[Arou]

The best way for you to improve your kill rate is to level your warrior up.

Actually, I can already kill them nonstop without breaking as a 46th Warrior. This does not result in the reported rate of basic drops; 20 to 30 per hour. The reported rate with PBAoE is 50 per hour. I can at best get perhaps 10-15 an hour.

This is too slow. I will need a few thousand and cannot afford 100-200 hours of play time to get them.

Actually, I am finding smithing (and all trade skills) to be completely impossible because of irrationally high costs of time or money. If I sold everything I have on every character I have and had back every copper I have ever had for anything in the game... in short, every penny I have ever seen in the game... I would have at most 10k. I cannot fathom how people make 100k to dump into smithing and still have time or money for anything else. My 60+ level friends report farming Sebilis for cash all night and having 1.5k at the end of hours of work. This would mean acquiring 100k would take me 200+ hours in Sebilis... a functional impossibility.

After some research, I have found that this is what I would require for farming as described earlier;

PBAoE farming spells
Upheaval, Cleric 52 or Druid 51
Scintilation, Magician 51
Super Nova, Wizard 49
Torrent of Poison, Shaman 55

Seeing as how I have worked very hard for 20+ months to get to 46th as a warrior, my highest character ever, I do not think at this time it is at all possible for me to achieve smithing above my current 115.

[Qallainx]

I cannot fathom how people make 100k to dump into smithing and still have time or money for anything else

People sell the goods that they make or else they go farming for items and sell those... If you're the capitalist type, you could always buy low and sell high from people selling items (but that requires some venture capital)...

If you want to get more quickly, you could offer incentives for people to exp there (perhaps make them something), meanwhile helping you collect the stuff you are after... Hopefully this helps... good luck... just keep in mind that not everyone goes from nothing to GM in a trade skill in one night...

[Arghargh]

If you aren't ready and willing to put 100+ hours into farming for smithing (for pp or componants), then stop now. I spent over 110 hours just farming for about 1000 shadowscream attempts (this is excluding time spent manipulating the war, petitioning, actually doing the combines).

One suggestion I do have is get a high damage two hander. You can often kill owlbears/sonic wovles in one round. I never bothered to loot anything but the substances, and perfect owlbear pelts because I didn't want to waste time looting stuff just to destroy it later.

Arghargh Grumble, Darkblood
57 Ogre Shaman of Rallos Zek
Alchemy – 165
Baking – 200
Brewing - 200
Fishing - 200
Fletching – 200
Jewelcraft –200
Potting - 200
Grandmaster Smith - 250
Tailoring – 159

[kiztent]

Actually, I am finding smithing (and all trade skills) to be completely impossible because of irrationally high costs of time or money. If I sold everything I have on every character I have and had back every copper I have ever had for anything in the game... in short, every penny I have ever seen in the game... I would have at most 10k. I cannot fathom how people make 100k to dump into smithing and still have time or money for anything else. My 60+ level friends report farming Sebilis for cash all night and having 1.5k at the end of hours of work. This would mean acquiring 100k would take me 200+ hours in Sebilis... a functional impossibility.

Progression of cash isn't linear, it's exponential. And if you go to Sebilis, and you win a fungus covered scaled tunic, you just made 70K.

The best way to make cash is to save up a starter pool, then dumpster dive. That is, check vendors for items that they have that are worth more than the vendor charges. Some favorite examples of mine:

Blue Diamonds : vendor 250pp - sell for 400pp
frost/storm giant meat : vendor 1sp - 5 steaks sell for 2.5pp
tufts of dire wolf fur - less than 1sp - sell for 10pp

Now, I agree that smithing is broken, but you underestimate the difficulty of skilling up.

[Arou]

If you aren't ready and willing to put 100+ hours into farming for smithing (for pp or componants), then stop now.

I have come to learn over the last few months that if you aren't willing to put 100+ hours into anything in EQ, than you should just stop playing EQ now. It's sad, really... I was enjoying EQ for awhile there.

Since I am not willing to be bored out of my mind spending 100+ hours to get 1 level or 100+ hours to get 1 skill point in trade skills, then I guess EQ just isn't for me. It's sad that they cannot make this game more interesting to casual players; I do not want to have to play 40 hours a week to get anywhere or be completely dependent on others for even running across a zone.

In any event, this is all off topic. Thanks to the original followup on giving me ideas on where to look for farming help. Good luck and thanks to all.

[BrindalayShadowlace]

As a 58 SK going solo i believe i was able to pull around 30 wailings an hour when i happened to go in and find the owlbears in the south and no attacks going on. Managed 200 wailings in about 6 hours with no problem.

I just wish i wasn't working today, tried to get the wolves in the south this morning but i had left too many healers up in the grimling camp and the wolves couldn't finish the last one off before they poofed. ( on lanys if anyone wants to go fix it ;-) )

[Kellrin]

Seeing as how I have worked very hard for 20+ months to get to 46th as a warrior, my highest character ever, I do not think at this time it is at all possible for me to achieve smithing above my current 115.

If you are at 115 skill you should NOT be working on shadowscream at all. Fine plate is the next step after banded. that gets you to 188.

[Arou]

If you are at 115 skill you should NOT be working on shadowscream at all. Fine plate is the next step after banded. that gets you to 188.

Agreed. This is my projected skill up path;

ornate chain bracer (triv 122)
1 wrist chain mail pattern
1 smithy hammer
1 silver bar
1 flask of water
1 high quality ring

ornate chain coif (triv 132) <- to me, optional
1 head chain mail pattern
1 smithy hammer
1 silver bar
1 flask of water
2 high quality rings

fine plate bracer (triv 168)
1 smithy hammer
1 leather padding
1 flask of water
1 wrist plate mold
1 medium quality folded sheet of metal
1 block of medium quality ore
water
smithy hammer

Farming FS weapons in Stonebrunt is most functional for me right now. The highland kobolds are the optimum point for difficulty and FS weapon drops for me right now. As a Vah Shir, Sol A is too tight. As a warrior, I cannot solo tougher mobs efficiently. FS "Asian" weapons from these kobolds can convert to ore nicely, plus I pull down fair plat and Etched Iron pieces for resale. Also, there is never competition - well, never was, now that I let the cat out of the bag.

Been saving hides and pelts for an age, but I might as well get a few more points in before skipping to Fine Plate. The question I posed here is in preparation for future skill ups. Do the research and planning now means not having to do it later.

[Bobbun]

I just recently went through the progression you're describing myself. IMHO, once you get to ornate coifs, you might as well go ahead and progress to electrum ornate coifs, gold ornate coifs, then on to the three ring gold ornate pieces. While these might seem expensive, the vendor buyback prices reflect the higher cost of production so the losses are no greater really than on the other ornate. The cash lost by continuing up through gold ornate likely will be less than what you will lose by skilling up on fine plate after silver ornate, and as a bonus you'll save a lot of time on padding farming.

[Annu]

Also, there is never competition - well, never was, now that I let the cat out of the bag.

Ah GREAT! Now I gotta deal with more than 1 other person in the zone!

Annu

[Gymp]

On the whole AE idea, if you decide to go this route, make sure you have a high enough dmg AE or you'll waste your time. The Wolves and Owlbears tend to run at 1 1/2 bubbles and they run FAST especially if the shammy class versions have had a chance to SoW them. Also, some of them will warp back to their spawn if they get too far away. I tried the herd and AE with my necro but lost quite a few to them running off. I watched a 57 cleric AE them today and he had some of the same problems. Even single killing w/ pet I had to use lvl 8 darkness to keep them from bolting like a bat outta hell after 1 or 2 hits.

My guess would be a Bard would be best to AE the Hollowshade mobs simply due to them not needing mana for most of their songs (don't play a Bard so far from an expert here.)